WordPress is keeping a brotha down

Re: “Where is a blogger supposed to go these days if they don’t want to get fucked?”

Buy your own hosting. Still not perfectly immune, since people can go crying to the hosting company, but the company’s decision to nuke someone is a decision to lose a payed account, rather than a no-brainer liability-avoidance one.

This is why anyone who is seriously getting into the blogging thing, needs to eventually move to a self-hosted wordpress strategy. You get the same, if not better benefits as wordpress.com but without the iron fist policies.

Hopefully he has subscribed to his own RSS feed in which case he should be able to access most of his old content.

Ob,

I wonder if you could sue…..

Play the race card in the complaint. Say that feminism is persecuting the black man….

I use HTTrack Website Copier to back up my blog from time to time. Works well and it’s free for cheapskates like me.

http://www.httrack.com/

Good insurance against the Blogger Police, should they come a knockin’ at my door.

PS

I know it is too late for Obsidian but it may save others.

Let that be a lesson. Never trust The Man.

It was sugested by a commenter on Chuck’s blog that Obsidian’s violation of terms may have been copy-pasting entire copyrighted articles into his blog posts.

Even onestd1 reached out to uncle mu. that really shocked me. i can’t think of any situation where two women have fought like that where one would reach out to another in times of hardship. i’ve offened a few women in these parts with my cutting wit *chic noir smiles*. man some of them still haven’t really forgiven me. with you guys i can cuss you out tonight and we would be cool again a few days later. well there is one male exception but otherwise the men are far more forgiiving. obsidian suffered from the same thing that rose did hubris. i warned both of them but neither chose to listen. when a woman warns you about another woman and she has no alter motive , for godsakes, listen to her.

So how much does it cost to buy the servers to have your very own massive bloghosting network?

http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/internet-web-hosting/714-1.html

Looks like apache is free.

Looks like a big giant fucking hole ready to be filled.

lol wtf trying to post how to host your own site free and it won’t let me just search it online.

Hi Ferd,
Just wrote this up for my new blog this morning, but in light of the circumstances, I hope you won’t mind my reposting it here; it will answer some questions some of your readers may have.

The Day I Got “Juan Williams’d”: A Wake-Up Call To Bloggers Everywhere – Especially Brotha Bloggers

We all have particular dates on the calendar that mark watershed moments in our lives. For me, one of those dates is Wed, Nov 3, 2010. Why this date and note say, the date I founded my blog, The Obsidian Files – which had just celebrated one year old on Halloween?

Because, more than the founding of my blog, it was the day that it was taken down, that looms the largest for me. And its a date others reading along should do well to remember.

Because its a date that follows on the heels of another important date for the body politic – it was barely two weeks after veteran journalist and avowed Liberal Juan Williams, was summarily fired from his job of more than a decade, NPR, for daring to speak his mind and do so with those on the Right. There’s a great deal of similarity between Williams and myself – we both do what we love, which is to write and to give our take on the great issues of our time. To be sure, he’s been at it a lot longer than myself, and he gets paid for what he does to boot – something I don’t mind, because I never set out to do this blogging thing to make money (although that just might change, if my guess is right…). But perhaps the biggest thing we both have in common, is that we’re both Black Men.

But not only are we both Black Men, we’re supposed to fit into some kind of pre-defined box – we all know the drill by now. Black Men aren’t supposed to think for themselves. They’re supposed to be for Leftist causes and issues, come Hell or Highwater – and if we don’t, if we question them, on any level whatsoever, then we’re “Juan Williams’d” – meaning, thrown under the bus, tossed overboard, kicked to the curb. You get the idea.

Williams has said, in the days following his firing by NPR, that a lot of his assumptions came tumbling down – he was a Liberal because he thought that Liberals were tolerant, open minded folk. He found out the hard way – and I’m quoting him now – that this assumption simply wasn’t true, and that if anything, it was those on the Right, who had proven to him far and away more tolerant. he ought to know – after all, he sat among the Rightest of the Right, for years. And they weren’t the ones who cast him out, like a leper. It was NPR – bastion of Leftwing points of view.

The parallel for me could not have been more striking – for it wasn’t rabid, raving, foaming at the mouth White racists in the form of “HBDers”, storming the Wordpress gates and clamoring for my head on a platter – it was my own “people”, in the form of Black Women, who did it. The very same Black Women, I would bet a dollar to a donut, who consider themselves progressive, open minded tolerant and “Liberal”. The same Black Women who have pulled the level for the “D” column in virtually every election since they could vote. The same Black Women who claim to be for the rights of the minority – except “minorities” they don’t like. Like Brothas who speak their minds for example, about issues that actually matter. What are those issues, Obsidian? Sexual Politics, that’s what.

Earlier this year, during my tenure at the online Men’s magazine The Spearhead, I ran into a buzzsaw of contention for merely pointing out some things about my White brothers than they didn’t like. a veritable shitstorm was started, much gnashing of teeth, this, that…but I wasn’t banned or “fired” from The Spearhead; and no one called for my blog to be taken down. Those who have known me for any length of time know that I’ve had epic battles with many on the HBD side of the ledger – again, no one called for my voice to be shutdown. True, I’ve been more or less banned from participating at certain blogs; but that’s a far cry different from wanting to shut another person’s blog down.

That only happened when Women, in this case they happened to be Black, did so.

And, let’s be clear as to what kind of Black Women I’m talking about, lest I be accused of being a “misogynist” much in the way Williams was accused of being an “Islamophobe” – I’m not talking about the everyday Sista out there just trying to get by and live her life. I’m talking about Sistas who have chosen to enter into the public square of opinion and debate and attempt to foist their views onto the rest of us, without challenge or critique – then, when such a thing happens, which is inevitable, they want to suddenly revert from “strong, independent Women” to Damsels in Distress, pilloring you with all manner of Ad Hominem assualts in the process. In other words, these Sistas – and again I’m talking about bloggers and writers who have chosen to make it their life’s work to be advocates for certain points of view, and in some cases GET PAID FOR IT – want to have it both ways. They want to go into the public square, get up on the soapbox and say what they want, without challenge of any kind. And when they are challenged, when their views are shown to be proven false, when they’re exposed as the phonies and frauds that they are, they then want to shut you down, after attempting to paint you as a “misogynist” or a “racist” or a “stalker” or whatever else they can think of. Personally, it’s Black Women like these, that are doing grave harm to Black America, and I say that without any hint of hyperbole; this is not purple prose I’m going into here.

For Wordpress’ part, they are no better than NPR in my view, hang on, actually, they are worse – at least Juan Williams got a late night phonecall. I didn’t even get an email from WP. I was informed by others than my blog was gone. Ask me what I think of Wordpress’ commitment to freedom of speech.

Being born under the Sign of the Archer, every minute of every day is a “teachable moment” and had been reflecting on aspects of daily life long before that phrase became fashionable. Unlike so many others have been indoctrinated to do, my approach is to look at the world around me, and ask “wassup wit dat” and look for answers to explain it – not, instead, come to the table with preconceived notions already in my head, and try to make what I see fit those “facts”. I’ve found personally, that such an approach, if nothing else, simply doesn’t work. And it’s served me well.

Which is more a pressing concern for our body politic – racism, or feminism? For me, the answer couldn’t be cleearer. After all, it wasn’t hooded Klansmen, or HBDers, or Tea Partiers, or the Rotorary Club armed to the teeth with The Bell Curve, who stormed the Wordpress gates. It was those who consider themselves “progressive” and who all have vaginas, who did it. And they also just so happen to be Black.

I am hoping that this incident will be the one that will finally unite the much-beleagured “Men’s Movement”; fellas, we have much bigger fish to fry here. And if we let differences in skintone continue to divide us, then it will be as I’ve said in one of my final Wordpress blog posts the other day, about why Black Men vote the way they do, with so very little to show for it – we will have brought it on ourselves, and will have no one to blame, but ourselves.

You have an ally in me, brothers. It’s up to you, if you want to take a Black hand in friendship.

Many of you claim to be at least moderately to the Right. If that’s true, then follow Fox News’ example, not just over the past few weeks, but the past decade, because that’s how long Juan Williams has been there. If you’re truly serious about moving the ball forward, join with Brothas like me who are finding their voice and telling it like it TIZ. it isn’t my skintone or my supposed “genetic inheritance” that’s your problem. Your problem comes from a much more pernicious source, and you all know it. And we will never mount an effective counterstrike, if we remain divided. Do not get this twisted, gentlemen – if it can happen to me, it can happen to you.

Lastly, as we all know, it was a happy ending for Juan Williams – his firing by NPR led in truth, not only to a serious pay raise, but a full-on platform to air his views, uncensored and uncut. I think the same will be true for me – I think I’m on the cusp of something great. Because when people mobilize to have your voice shutdown, that means that not only have you struck a raw nerve, but that there’s a there, there – and you need to cultivate that.

I want to thank all the well-wishers for coming out in support of me, online and especially off, and for all their help in assisting me in restoring key back postings of mine. I expect to have everything back up and running within a week or two. And when I do, it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy. Now, it’s ON.

Lemme tell you what I really think…

More to come – count on it

Now adjourn your asses…

The Obsidian

Why not at least send a well-written and researched letter threatening to their legal department threatening to take some kind of legal action for breach of contract? Of course I’m sure the TOS agreement contains all kind of traps making a lawsuit practically impossible. And there is certainly a binding arbitration clause in there which means you could never get to court.

But at the very least, you might get some kind of meaningful response about precisely which terms you violated.

Or it might get tossed in the circular filing cabinet anyway. But no big loss there.

Kevin, I know you are a suck-up, but Word Press also had no “incentive” to delete all of Obsidian’s work without warning out of pure nastiness.

They could easily have made his blog invisible, and told Obsidian that he has three days to copy his information out and then they are deleting everything.

An automated scrip required one button press could have done this.

They could have zipped his blog data up into a small file and emailed it to him.

Again, automated scrip and one button press.

They delete everything without warning cause they are nasty *bleeps*.

Now, Kevin, retreat from the field like the cur you are.

PA–

It was sugested by a commenter on Chuck’s blog that Obsidian’s violation of terms may have been copy-pasting entire copyrighted articles into his blog posts.

That would be much less worrying. And also makes sense given that Roissy/Chateau’s been up on Wordpress for 3.5 years. Still you’d think they’d warn him and give him an opportunity to take those pages down.

Actually after reading the comment thread on a post that Chuck devotes to this, it seems pretty clear to me that Wordpress did shut him down for posting a woman’s pic he got from her site on the web, on his own site, presumably to make unflattering remarks about her:

The issue was with a *picture* that I posted, that of on Ms. Bene Viera, a fledgling writer, blogger and the like. I posted a publicly posted picture of her on my blog to accompany a post I wrote which responded to her weaksauce attacks on me. Some of the readers here may recall said post, since obviously Jamila doesn’t.
Ms. Viera and another person, who referred to him/herself as “Pro” evidently took the matter up with WP, who lost its nerve and took down the pic. I noted this when “Pro” gloated that was the case, and put it back up. and that’s what led to WP taking down my blog.
Now, I can’t prove it, but it would not surprise me if the parties Chuck mentioned above also had a hand in things, ie, reporting WP on me. Again, I can’t prove this, so I want to be very careful in putting that qualifier on it.

http://glpiggy.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/obsidians-been-banned/#comment-6259

Uncle mu, you had written something my bene,jamilla and jasmina’s apperance on a post you wrote. i think what really upset her was your following her around the net trying tgo get a response from her when she didn’t want to be bothered.

Quit fucking with hos online.

Moral to story.

You ain’t getting ass and you ain’t changing minds.

@ Gunslinger- yea cause unlike most people i don’t care much for drama and try to cool things down before threy become major. @uncle mu_ okay i was just speaking to you as your e-neice. i know men don’t like taking direction from women and u seem determined so i’ma just let you be. * chic noir puts on claire hutable smock and goes into the kitchen to fix sandwiches*

He also had the hilarious habit of writing extensive dissertations about how women should choose shorter and less educated men.

[REDACTED] really has you people fooled. He was not kicked of Wordpress for his thoughts, as idiotic as they are. He was kicked of Wordpress for Copyright infringement. There’s a huge difference. Furthermore, the First Amendment doesn’t protect online stalking and harassment, which is exactly what [REDACTED] has a history of doing. I don’t understand why you all are jumping to support him when you don’t know the story. Have you all even researched who [REDACTED] “Obsidian Filies” is a person? He has openly admitted to being 40+, self educated(we all know that means he never attended college), an ex-con, and someone who has severe issues with black women. Dare I say he even has issues with being in his own black skin. There is a reason he tries to keep his “Obsidian Files” pseudonym far away from his real identity- [REDACTED]. He had what was coming to him. He is a sociopath who believes the rules of society don’t apply to him. This is why I believe he has the life he has. Ever heard of the saying “you can catch more bees with honey than you can vinegar.” Attacking people online gets you nowhere, which is the road [REDACTED] is on. Karma is a b*tch, and you’d think he would of learned that 30 something years ago.